7 awesome digital marketing tools you might not know about

by Kyle Vermeulen
January 16, 2018

New digital marketing tools are constantly popping up — it can be just as exciting as overwhelming. As a digital strategy agency, we spend a fair bit of time looking into different digital marketing tools for our clients and ourselves. And as an agnostic tool selector, this means we do our research well to match client’s needs with a tool’s capabilities.

Here’s seven of the most interesting, affordable, and awesome digital marketing tools we’ve recently recommended.

Intercom

A new and better way to acquire, engage and retain customers

Even if you’ve never heard of Intercom, I’m sure you’ve seen it on websites. Intercom is a live chat and targeted messaging system. But it’s way more than just chatting, Intercom can help you:

  • Build in email automation loops

  • Capture more leads

  • Set up targeted messages on pages

We’ve seen live chat dramatically increase the amount of leads and feedback that companies receive.  Here’s a really great case study from one founder who reckons 60% of their revenue is attributable to using Intercom.

If you have a high-value product that is tricky to explain, or simply want to start more conversations with your potential customers, Intercom is a great solution to check out.

intercom.com From $49/month.

Instapage

Get more from your digital advertising spend.

Building one-off landing pages can be a drain on your design and engineering team. But the fact remains, sometimes you need a landing page, and you need it quick.

Instapage is a dead-simple landing page creator with surprisingly good templates and easy-enough drag and drop style design. You should be able to build the bones of your landing page in a couple minutes, and substitute in your brand’s colours, fonts, and tone-of-voice.

It won’t be as perfect as your in-house designer, but for a temporary landing page, that’s a trade-off you should probably be willing to make.

instapage.com

Hello Bar

Hello Bar helps you improve the effectiveness of your website.

When you have a campaign/offer/promotion that’s so important you want ALL YOUR WEBSITE VISITORS  TO SEE IT, Hello Bar makes it possible. You can choose an alert bar, pop-up, or full screen takeover. Hello Bar is simple to install and edit, and a really effective way of driving traffic to offers on your website.

With much power (to interrupt) comes much responsibility, so use it wisely.

hellobar.com Free version available. Paid plans from $15/month.

Inspectlet

See every mouse movement, scroll, click, and keypress on your site. You never need to wonder how visitors are using your site again.

Inspectlet is a tool that allows you to watch and play-back videos of your users’ website sessions. It records every click, scroll, and mouse movement so you can more deeply understand how people actually use your website or app. Used by companies like Shopify, eBay, and WordPress, Inspectlet makes over-the-shoulder UX testing an instant and actual thing.

Inspectlet can also be a powerful tool for sharing specific examples of how people use (or rage click!) your website. Sometimes a clear video example that highlights a user need is the perfect way to get buy-in from your team.

Note: While there is functionality to block recording of form fields and information, you’ll likely want to run this tool past your legal team before you implement it. You’ll want to update your privacy policy too.

inspectlet.com Free version available. Paid plans from $39/month.

Zapier

Connect your apps and automate workflows. Easy automation for busy people.

Zapier is a super easy way to automate tasks between apps. Instead of logging a ticket with your engineering team to build an integration, you can use Zapier to integrate different systems.

For example, say you’re hosting an event. You can set up Zapier to:

  • Send an email when someone registers for an event

  • Add them to your email subscribers list

  • Add them to your sales CRM as a potential lead

  • Announce in your Slack channel that you have another sign up

That’s a really simple case; Zapier can be used for monitoring and connecting systems that you didn’t know were possible.

zapier.com Free version available. Paid plans from $20 USD/month.

Nuvi

Real-time data visualisations are what set NUVI apart. Beautiful, insightful, data-driven designs will fuel your strategy and guide your decision-making process.

Nuvi is a social media monitoring platform that allows you to track digital conversations, measure the influence and sentiment, and quickly analyse insights. We often use Nuvi to show clients what Australian or global conversions are happening related to their product, services, competitors, or industry.

Nuvi helps your digital team stay strategic when you’re listening to social conversations and not overreact to a single post. It doesn’t offer all the features as Salesforce’s expensive Radian6, but at the price point it does well enough.

nuvi.com Price by negotiation, demo available.

Vero

Create, save and deploy completely dynamic groups of your customers based on their attributes and actions.

Vero is an event-based email automation platform that won’t kill your budget. Although Vero is a fairly young product, they’ve captured a good chunk of the startup market and are used by the likes of Canva, Freelancer, and Tidal (remember them? The spotify competitor owned by Jay-Z and Kanye? Nope? Nothing? Nevermind.)

Vero helps you set up email journeys which can be customised based on your user’s interaction with your app or website. Like most event-based platforms, you will need a developer to help with the integration, but once you’re set up, it’s an intuitive platform.

Moving from email campaigns to user-based emails is an investment worth making.

getvero.com From $99/month.

Bonus: Google Mobile Friendly Test

Ok, this tool you’ve no doubt heard of… but it’s so easy, so simple, and so important. The majority of your website visitors are likely from a mobile device, so you should take 5 minutes and see what Google thinks of your website. This free test will analyse your code, let you know if your site is mobile friendly, and flag any page loading issues that come up.

Remember, just because your website looks pretty, that doesn’t mean it’s mobile friendly.
Google Mobile Friendly Test – Free!

A quick reminder about tools…

Remember: there’s a ton of tools out there, no tool is magical enough to make all your marketing challenges go away. Don’t confuse tools for tactics, or tactics for strategy. No one likes “shiny marketing tool syndrome”—especially if you don’t follow through and report back on results.

But when tools are used in the right context and with the right training—to solve an actual problem and move you forward in your marketing goals—they can make your life (and marketing) much easier.